Almost Lover
by accidental laughter
Summary: She's back in her one bedroom apartment, looking at pictures spread across the floor like marbles. She's got one of almost every moment spent with him - just because she tends to hold onto lost causes.


**Story: **_Almost Lover_**  
>Summary: "<strong>_She's back in her one bedroom apartment, looking at pictures spread across the floor like marbles. She's got one of almost every moment spent with him - just because she tends to hold onto lost causes."_  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>_All rights belong to their respective owners (aka, Dan)_

**I feel completely drained after writing this- as if my heart and soul are buried somewhere between the lines. There are at least a thousand and two flashbacks, so I hope you don't get confused. The quotes in italics are words to a song. **

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><p>"<em>Your fingertips across my skin, the palm trees swaying in the wind…"<em>

She lays in bed, feeling empty inside. Her arm is draped across her stomach, holding it as if she's in pain. She stares at the ceiling, contemplating her next move. It's late - at least nine (which isn't late to her, but anything over seven thirty is late for _him. _She would know) and she wonders what he's doing (r i g h t n o w). She has her theories, but she reminds herself that she shouldn't be thinking about _him, _anyway.

Her mouth twitches in something between regret and sadness (she decides on the latter). Her stomach feels tense and giddy.

_I'm just hungry, _she decides. A different voice in her head whispers, _you're always hungry, Sam._

She flinches at the voice; so familiar, so close. Her hands press down on her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the agonizing memories rushing through her brain (but it's too late).

"_Images.."_

His body is dangerously close to hers. She can smell his overpriced cologne - _Sleek & Sensational- _which should be called - _Dangerous & Distracting, _which is exactly what he is at this moment.

His breath wraps around her neck as he whispers, "This is wrong."

She knows it is. She can't help it. He feels the electricity, too: his hand is tracing over the lines on her fingers, and she absentmindedly wonders if he knows the effect he has on her.

"How so?" She asks innocently, not meeting his eyes.

"When you said you couldn't sleep alone, I didn't know you meant you wanted me to sleep with you."

"Yeah, because I was hoping you'd bring Gibby instead," she tsks, turning to face him, "Now say something to help me get to sleep."

He yawns, "Like what?"

She's got it all planned out in her head - the perfect insulting jeer of her dreams, but instead she blurts, "Say something in Spanish."

He seems taken aback at first, but a small smile soon forms at the edges of his lips, "Okay.. How about a lullaby?"

She nods and he begins to sing. It's a low, soothing song, and he sounds completely and utterly engrossed in the melody. He speaks in plain English:

"I have always dreamed to find someone like you. No more lonely nights -I'll never make it through. Won't you say you will fulfill this empty part? Cause I've been searching for what's missing in my heart,"

She closes her eyes and he continues,

"Come with me to a place.. come feel my warm embrace. There's is so much I have to give (You don't know, you don't know). Come feel my passion rise . There's so much I have inside ..So much more life you have to live. And I never will abandon what we share, for I cherish every moment that you're near. I will never let you shed a tear for me cause every ounce of love I give to you …"

It ends on a low note, but she doesn't notice. All she can concentrate on is the slow, rhythmic hands that are working their way up to her shoulder.

"_You sang me Spanish lullabies, the sweetest sadness in your eyes…"_

His fingers hesitate as they reach her neck. She's already half unconscious, but she can still hear the ending of the song that accomplished so much more than it should have.

"You're my beautiful melody. No querido estas sentir. Quien es mi amor-I can feel your love calling for me- De amor, de quiero. You're my Spanish lullaby."

He doesn't dare touch anything else.

"_Clever trick."_

The images in her head swirl around again - and this time they take her back a little further…

"_Sam!" _

She giggles mischievously as he runs to catch up with her. She looks back and starts to run faster and further away from him, but finally slows down when she realizes he's never going to catch up. They're about thirteen, and just getting acquainted with their sprouting friendship. As he approaches her soaked appearance and soggy clothes, he can only think of how the rain doesn't take away any of her beauty - and instead leaves her looking like she just walked out of a swimsuit photo shoot. "What are you doing? It's raining, " She rolls her eyes as he states the obvious.

"Oh, live a little, Benson," She replies, taking off again into the rain-drenched streets of Seattle. He catches up quick this time, and grabs hold of her by the wrist.

"Wait," he whispers, and she waits. He doesn't let go of her hand. Instead, he looks around and contemplates his next move. Suddenly he knows what to do. He points to a tree and says, "Last one there has to do whatever the other person wants."

Sam smiles; she likes this challenge. "You're on."

Without warning, Freddie takes a head-start, momentarily distracting Sam and angering her at the same time.

"Cheater!" she screams when she reaches the tree and he's already there. He expects a punch in the gut, but she smiles, instead, and says, "Mamma taught you well."

"So, what's my punishment?" She asks, leaning against the huge oak, " and don't say eating a cricket, because believe me - they're not as tasty as they look."

He shakes his head, no. "Then what?" She asks, growing impatient, "lets get it over with."

He gnaws on his bottom lip nervously.

"Shoot!" she slaps him on the back.

"Okay, okay," he raises up his hands defensively. She crosses her arms, waiting.

"Dance with me," he mumbles, watching her eyes widen.

"Dance - with you?"

He looks like he just told her his deepest darkest secret. His face is all closed off and nervous looking. She almost laughs.

"That's all?"

He breathes a sigh of relief, "Yeah."

Her hair is completely soaked when she grabs his hand awkwardly and pulls him out unto the street. "If we're going to do this," she tells him, "we've got to do it right."

He doesn't really know what she means, but he follows her lead and only blushes a little when she forces his hand on her back. As they start to swing back and forth, the rain pours harder.

"This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of," she says eventually, and he only pretends that it doesn't affect him, "there isn't even any music."

He grinds his teeth together and says, "We're making our own music."

She raises a brow and he just smiles sheepishly, "I don't know. Heard it in some soap opera Carly watches."

"_We walked along a crowded street, you took my hand and danced with me."_

After a few minutes in silence, just the two of them swaying in the torrential downpour, Sam rests her head on his shoulder.

"I can hear it," she whispers, more to herself than anyone.

That's when she hears the sound of their heartbeats pulsing one after the other - like a lost melody. Sad, but musical.

"_Images.."_

She's back in her one bedroom apartment, looking at pictures spread across the floor like marbles. She's got one of almost every moment spent with him - just because she tends to hold onto lost causes. There's one that stands out in particular.

She's in his bedroom because he's somehow convinced her to help him pack for college.

"Dude, galaxy wars underwear? Seriously?"

He blushes and grabs his underwear from her hands. "I told you to only pack the stuff in the _top _drawer." he nags, pointing at the dresser.

"Yeah, but all that stuff was boring. Besides, I wanted to see all the goodies you hide in your underwear drawer."

"I don't hide things in my underwear drawer!"

She frowns, "But everyone does. I know for a fact Carly keeps gifts from her past boyfriends in her underwear drawer."

He shudders and places a wrinkle free shirt into his leather suitcase. "T.M.I, Sam."

"Oh, like you haven't stayed up late nights thinking about her underwear drawer." She taunts, wiggling her eyebrows.

"As a matter o fact I haven't, Sam. Now are you going to help me or what?"

She groans and starts to dig things out of his other drawers like he orders her to. She finds a whole bunch of stuff - headphones, flash drives, CD's, memory cards - she doesn't expect any less from Fredward. She is surprised, though, when she finds a picture of Carly stashed away in his sock drawer.

"Why's this here?" She asks, turning to him with a composed look on her face. He grabs the picture eagerly, "Oh- that's nothing."

"Looks like something to me," she crosses her arms.

He sighs and puts the picture back into his dresser.

"It's just an old picture of Carly that I need to frame," he says honestly, staring back at her, "Why are you so upset?"

He can't decipher the look on her face when she says, "I'm not."

Suddenly he has the urge to make it all better. He wants that smile back on her face. It feels as if he's done something wrong, and he'd do anything to make it right again.

"I've got a picture of you, too." he rushes to a different drawer labeled, "misc", and pulls out a picture of Sam during her last pageant, smiling with a chicken leg in hand.

"That's nice." she says, the normality never fully returning to her voice. Somewhere deep inside she wonders why her picture isn't in an important drawer, like Carly's. A drawer that gets opened everyday. She finally tells herself to stop wondering, because it's doing more bad than good.

Days later, they're at the airport: Carly, Sam, Spencer and Freddie, that is. Freddie's on his way to Yale, whereas Carly's going to a college that Sam didn't take the time to remember.

"I'll miss you so much," Carly's telling Freddie as she hugs him. He hugs back, just as happy as ever. "I'll miss you too, Carls."

There's the moment Sam has been dreading. He turns to her with open arms. She looks away.

"C'mon, Sam. Aren't you going to at least say goodbye?"

So, she does what Sam does best and says, "Goodbye, Nub. I sure will miss your money."

His smile falters just a bit, but he hides it with a laugh, "I'll miss you, too, Sam." he says, and grabs his suitcase.

"Bye, Freddo," Spencer tells him as he starts to turn and walk away.

Sam plants her feet firmly on the ground as Carly and Spencer walk back to the car.

"You commin'?" Carly asks quietly. Sam shakes her head. "Nah, I'll just meet up with you later."

Carly seems confused but doesn't question her decision. She takes off with Spencer and leaves Sam in the airport parking lot.

Suddenly, she's overcome with emotion, Sam runs. She runs passed the TSA guards, and the flight attendants, and the hundreds of people that seem to be purposely blocking her way. She runs passed the sign that says, "Caution, airplane boarding." Countless women and men alike try to barricade her with wide arms, but she runs passed them too, and somehow finds herself smack dab in the center isle of the plane, staring Freddie in the eyes.

The look on his face is priceless - but she has no time to waste, more flight attendants are coming- she runs up to his seat and thrusts a picture into his hands.

"Wha-" he starts, but she interrupts him. "It's a picture of us on your fire escape," she explains, pointing at the photo, "You've got that really weird look on your face because I just told you that I brushed my teeth with your toothbrush," the words seem to be slipping out of her mouth like a waterfall, "and I've got my arm over your shoulder because you told me not to touch you because you had poison ivy but I didn't care because I thought I was invulnerable," She laughs quickly, "but I ended up stuck with poison ivy for three weeks."

He opens his mouth again, but she cuts him off , "I'm wearing black because I know you hate it when I wear depressing colors, remember that time when you-"

Suddenly his lips are on hers and her arms are around his neck and she's trying to sort out her thoughts but all she can think about is how he tastes like ham and how the last time they kissed he tasted like turkey and she realizes how much things have changed between them and how much this whole college ordeal is going to change them even more.

The kiss is over before it really begins and he is clutching the picture to his chest.

"How could I forget?" he says, smiling. His eyes are twinkling dorkily and she resists the urge to kiss him again.

She realizes that this whole tough girl persona is starting to wear away and he's starting to break through her shell. She does what she should've done earlier and hugs him.

"I'll never forget you, Sam."

"_And when you left you kissed my lips, you told me you would never ever forget these images…"_

Back in her suburban apartment, Sam kicks the pictures away. She's angry at herself, she realizes. She shouldn't have let it get this far. Suddenly, she's ripping up her pillow - designating a rip for each mistake she's made. Every time she's thought of him since he's been away. _Rip._ Every ignored phone call. _Rip. _Every haunted dream. _Rip. _Every morning she wakes up feeling empty and reaching for him. _Rip. _

"_I cannot go to the ocean, I cannot drive the streets at night, I cannot wake up in the morning without you on my mind.."_

Suddenly she remembers he's in town. She remember a voice mail from a few weeks ago. Nothing serious, nothing new, just that he'd be in town on business and he 'really wants to see his old friend again."

There's that word that pierces through her like a bullet.

She checks her clock- it's ten now. If he's back in town he's probably running on a different schedule. He's probably awake.

A voice in her head tells her it's a bad idea. It's that tiny voice that hardly ever gets listened to because it's right and she knows it.

She doesn't care. When has she ever cared? So she drives to the Groovy Smoothies at ten o'clock and tries to think of the words she's going to use.

"Sorry I ignored you for three years,"… "Sorry but you've haunted me for three years and I can't sleep and I think I'm going insane."

Yeah, those are perfect things to say.

"_So you're gone and I'm haunted, and I bet you are just fine."_

She pulls up in the drive and steps out of the car, just realizing that she's still in her bacon pajamas, but she doesn't give a crap. As she nears the door she can barely make out his figure through the glass.

She walks in and opens her mouth - only to have her heart plummet to her shoes.

Freddie's here all right. Holding hands with a certain brown haired beauty.

"_Did I make it that easy to walk right in and out of my life?"_

She lets out a squeak of surprise and must've heard it because he turns around in his seat and drops his jaw. He drops Carly's hand like a hot potato and says, "Sam, I-"

But she doesn't hear him.

"_Goodbye my almost lover."_

She's running. Running passed glass doors and empty parking lots. Running passed green fields and cracked sidewalks.

"_Goodbye my hopeless dream.."_

She's running to the only place she's ever felt anything. The only place she's ever felt loved.

"_I'm trying not to think about you…"_

She climbs the cold steel ladder and makes her way up to the fire escape, only to be heartbroken once again.

"_Can't you just let me be?"_

The chairs are gone. The chairs that were the structure of her everything, the life to what once was very alive, are gone.

"_So long my luckless romance…"_

Her heart is already deep underground, but the chairs seem to bring everything back up to the surface. Every kiss, every touch, every moment, now lost.

"_My back is turned on you…"_

She sits on the dusty floor, now, and traces over what once was two handprints, one placed carefully into the cement, and the other sloppily and rushed. She wonders why she ever thought Freddie was hers in the first place. There's that voice, again, the one that rarely gets listened to, whispering, _because at one time, he was._

She closes her eyes and it comes back to her again.

"What are you doing here, Sam?"

She's taken back sometime three years before. She's standing in the doorway separating her from his fire escape, looking composed (but inside she's falling a p a r t).

"What, a girl can't visit a dork once in a while?"

He smiles, but it looks forced. He pulls out a chair next to him and she sits quickly.

"What're you doing out here all by your lonesome?" she asks. He shrugs and says, "Guarding the cement."

She just notices the patch of wet cement in front of her feet. He watches her closely, cautiously.

"Don't even think about it, Puckett." He threatens, "Mom would kill me."

She smiles, but shrugs innocently. "Oh, c'mon. I'm not _that _immature."

He laughs but she can tell he still doesn't trust her. They sit in silence for a while, until he finally breaks down and says, "I just don't know if I can do it, Sam."

She looks up, not interested in staring at the cement any longer. "What do you mean?"

He runs his hand through his hair. "College, I guess. And everything else that includes growing up and leaving this town behind."

She feels a pang in her chest put ignores it.

"Oh, you'll be fine, Benson. Knowing you you'll adapt. You always do."

He contemplates her words, then says, "What about you?"

"What about me what?"

"What are you planning on doing after this?" He waves an arm around the fire escape area as if it is something she is currently doing.

"I guess I'll just do what I always do."

"And that would be?"

She smirks, "Terrorizing the streets of Seattle."

He starts to laugh, but a serious look consumes his face and he says, "I'm serious, Sam. What are you going to do?"

This is the question she's been most trying to ignore, lately. It seems like everybody has their life planned out except her. Sure, she's thought about college, but that just doesn't seem like her kind of place. Of course, this isn't really her kind of place, either.

"I don't know," she says, sadly. He can tell it's a sore subject for her.

Nobody says anything for the longest while. She's thinking about heading home and destroying something- anything to distract herself from the gloom of growing up and actually being somebody, when Freddie suddenly says, "Oh, screw it."

She turns and faces him curiously. He doesn't say anything, but instead grabs her hand and points at the wet cement.

"Lets do it."

She doesn't know why, but this simple decision makes her happy. She likes this side to Freddie. It's the tough side that doesn't care if life isn't perfect. The side that's reckless and not Freddie-like at all. The side that notices every good thing about her. The side that memorizes dorky poems just so he can repeat them to her at night when she can't sleep. The side that overlooks her faults and doesn't care if she punches him after he holds her hand -because she's worth it.

She doesn't even realize he's still holding her hand- she's too gut wrenching happy- until he looks at her.

"Let's do it together, though," he decides, and holds up the hand not being held by Sam.

"You do your left, I'll do my right."

As their hands inch forward towards the cement, she looks at him curiously, as if looking at him for the first time. His face is a lot less rounded than it used to be, and he has allowed his hair to grow out onto his forehead, something that surprises her because of his mom and all. Instead of the happiness she should be feeling (he's holding your hand, stupid) she feels afraid and depressed. Everything's changing.

Their hands are just about to smash into the cement when he says, "Well…" He's unsure about what he's about to say. "What about this..If you ever, and I mean ever, need me or miss me or anything, just come here-" he pushes his hand unto the cement slowly and carefully, "-and I'll be right here beside you."

For some reason she wants to cry and she isn't watching where she's going because her emotions are going haywire, so she ends up overlapping her handprint with his and messing it all up.

He just smiles and says, "I guess we'll be holding hands forever."

"_Should've known you'd bring me heartache.."_

Now, alone at the fire escape, Sam fills in her side of the handprint and waits for him to fulfill his part of the deal.

"Where are you?" she says, her voice breaking ( he b r o k e her)

"_Almost lovers always do."_

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><p><strong>AN: Song is 'Almost lover' by A fine Frenzy. It's a great song ( that I don't own..) and I recommend listening to it while reading this. My longest oneshot ever. Hope you liked it as much as I did. I had to edit it three times because of my computer kept messing up, so it's not really what I imagined it to be...**


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